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| Monday, March 1, 2021 09:53 AM |
| For Amazonians Only |
 by Fëanor |
Exciting news! Amazon invited me to a private beta for self-publishing hardcover books, so both my books are now available on Amazon in hardcover format! Their hardcover format is a bit different from the Barnes & Noble format. Barnes & Noble prints the cover illustration on a paper jacket that wraps around the book. Amazon does what they call case laminate hardcover, which means the cover illustration is applied directly to the cover itself, and there is no jacket.
Anyway, here are the links! Thanks for looking.
Tree and Beast
Sea and Sword |
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| Saturday, November 12, 2011 10:06 AM |
| On the Viewer - Immortals |
 by Fëanor |
I'm a big fan of director Tarsem Singh (AKA Tarsem, AKA Tarsem Singh Dhandwar, AKA Tarsem Dhandwar Singh). I've really enjoyed every movie I've seen by him (see my review of The Fall), and Immortals is no exception. Like his other films, it's visually stunning and insanely imaginative. One of the film's most stunning and imaginative images is the one with which it opens: the Titans, covered in filth, locked standing in rows inside a box beneath a mountain, with long metal poles held between their teeth. This is where the climax of the film will take place. Should the villain arrive here with the weapon of legend in hand, humanity and the Gods both may fall forever.
(Be aware I've included some bits of information below that could be described as "spoilers." But c'mon. The story's pretty old at this point, people.)
The film is set in the mythological past of Greece and tells the story of a simple peasant named Theseus (Henry Cavill) who wants nothing but to live out his life in his small seaside town and keep his mother safe. But higher powers have taken an interest in him. Zeus, king of the Gods (Luke Evans), sees in him the only hope for mankind, and, in the form of a wise old man (John Hurt), tries to subtly influence him to do what must be done.
But before Zeus can convince Theseus to take any definite action, war sweeps in with King Hyperion at the head of it, and the peasant's simple life is torn apart. Hyperion (Mickey Rourke), raging at the Gods because they refused to answer his prayers and let his family die of sickness, seeks to reclaim a legendary weapon, the Epirus bow, so he can use it to release the Gods' ancient enemies, the Titans, from their prison under Mount Tartarus. He will torture and kill anyone, and commit any blasphemy necessary to achieve his ends. When Theseus gets in the way, he is nearly destroyed and all but gives up hope. But the virgin oracle Phaedra (Freida Pinto) recognizes Theseus as not only a good man, but also essential to the future of Greece, and tries to guide him back to the right path.
Tarsem's Ancient Greece is a land of wild extremes. Every town is on the edge of a sheer, dizzyingly high cliff; Greece's last stand takes place behind a gigantic, towering wall in front of which sits a tremendous and terrifying army; when our heroes seek to cross a sea, they find it black with oil, and its waves rise up as high as a mountain; when Theseus is held prisoner, it's by a bright blue pool beneath a tall tower in the middle of an endless white desert. The costumes are similarly extravagant and otherworldly. Hyperion and all his men wear dark, hideous masks. The Gods are dressed in glowing gold and white with huge, fanciful (and frankly, faintly ridiculous) helmets on their heads. The actions of the characters are just as extreme: Hyperion's cruelty and savagery are horrific to behold; the Gods move and smite with breathtaking speed and power.
If you're like most people, the only thing you probably remember about Theseus is that he fought the Minotaur in the Labyrinth. That story is told here, but as a tiny subplot, and it's reimagined in a very interesting way: the Minotaur is a servant of Hyperion known only as "The Beast," a giant man who wears a bull helmet and grunts and snorts like an animal. Theseus doesn't use string to find his way out of the maze, but cuts himself and lets his own bloody footprints guide him.
If you're looking for a faithful retelling of ancient legends, or a realistic action movie, Immortals is not for you. This film is epic fantasy - a psychedelic dream of heroes and monsters; the tale of two interwoven wars, one between flawed humans, and one between flawed super-humans. In the conflict between Theseus and Hyperion, we see two men responding to physical and moral crises in different ways. What do we do if our prayers go unanswered? Do we curse the world and the Gods, or do we go on and do the best we can with our own two hands? What is the right action in a crisis: to protect only your loved ones and ignore all others, or to seek to protect all those who need help? And if even immortals can die, then where does true immortality lie? The answer would seem to be, in our deeds, and in our children.
Immortals has moments of ridiculousness, but it's so beautiful and creative and powerful and epic and exciting that it's hard to fault it when it goes a bit too far. Tarsem Singh has made another great film. I look forward to the next one. |
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| Wednesday, August 17, 2011 10:23 AM |
| Recyclotron |
 by Fëanor |
Fëanor pours the entire internet into the Recyclotron, and only the best links come out the other end for you to enjoy.
- The resurgence of animated GIFs was funny... at first. Now it's starting to wear on me. Tumblr is just full of them! Full, I say! But this one is funny.
- Some really wonderful pics from The Big Lebowski blu-ray release party.
- Pretty great reimagining of the cover of the classic video game Bad Dudes.
- An interesting post about a book called The Unofficial LEGO Minifigure Catalog.
- Drawn linked to a couple of neat art sites: Spencer Goldade's 365 Abstracts and Graham Annable's website.
- The top 100 sci-fi/fantasy novels, as voted by the readers of NPR. As usual with such lists, there are things on here I like and things on here I don't like. But I definitely approve of the top pick, natch.
- The latest episode of Awesome Hospital is pretty amazing.
- A first look at Pottermore, the new interactive online Harry Potter world.
- I've heard good things about Ready Player One. It's the first novel from a fellow named Ernest Cline, and it's "about a dystopian future where gamers fight to control the future of their virtual world, the OASIS." io9 has the first two chapters free to read on its site.
- io9 also has a list of fun upcoming sci-fi comics, including a Star Trek/Legion of Superheroes crossover book from IDW and DC. Woah!
- Did you see the latest Immortals trailer? Holy crap! Yeah!
- We've got a US release date for the next Wii Zelda game: November 20th.
- I know there are countless altered/parody versions of Edward Hopper's Nighthawks, but... well, here's another one. It's fun! There are monsters!
- Hipster Thundercats.
- Heh.
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| Tagged (?): Animated GIFs (Not), Art (Not), Books (Not), Cartoons (Not), Celebrities (Not), Comedy (Not), Comic books (Not), Craft (Not), Game of Thrones (Not), Harry Potter (Not), LEGO (Not), Links (Not), Monsters (Not), Movies (Not), Music (Not), Mythology (Not), News (Not), Painting (Not), Photography (Not), Photoshop (Not), Recyclotron (Not), Star Trek (Not), Tolkien (Not), Toys (Not), Video (Not), Video games (Not), Web comics (Not), Zelda (Not) |
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| Wednesday, July 6, 2011 11:43 AM |
| Recyclotron |
| by Fëanor |
Fëanor pours the entire internet into the Recyclotron, and only the best links come out the other end for you to enjoy.
- A couple of fun recent entries on Reelizer: a Monty Python and the Holy Grail poster called "Find the Grail" (which might be instructions as well as a title, but the image is too small to do a proper "Where's Waldo?"-style search), and a beautiful Blade Runner poster.
- Speaking of posters, here's a snazzy one for Raiders of the Lost Ark.
- Dawww. Totally cute Firefly image.
- Heh. A look at the inbox of the Witch-King of Angmar.
- I'm pretty sure I've linked to Hungover Owls here before, but the last couple entries have been golden, so here you go again.
- Awesome Captain America art from Mr. Hipp in honor of the 4th of July.
- BBC News lists 50 of the most hated office-speak phrases. This is from the UK so obviously some of these are a bit odd to American eyes, but a surprising number are painfully familiar. (Via S)
- Pretty stunning photos of people cosplaying as Lady Gaga for the recent "Lady Gaga Day" in the Taiwanese city of Taichung.
- You know I can't get through one of these without some Star Wars links, but this time I will try to keep them to one bullet point. Here's Leia as a Sith, Luke being super-emo (though to be fair he has good reason, as the image makes clear), and a potential T-shirt revealing Leia's reaction when she learned her true parentage.
- Patton Oswalt's rejected pitches for Batman comics are pretty amazing. I'd read those!
- Hipster Puppies is now a book!
- Realistic, disturbing reimaginings of Super Mario villains.
- Amazing convention sketches by David Aja.
- How about some Harry Potter links? Here's a cool (if slightly inaccurate) illustration of Harry protecting Sirius from the Dementors; an amusing T-shirt (via); and all the Harry Potter novels summarized as mostly-wordless, single-page comics.
- Fun Wolverine T-shirt done in the style of old cartoons.
- I hadn't heard of this book called Gods Behaving Badly - about the Greek Gods secretly alive and well in present day and disguised as normal human beings in New York City - but it sounds like fun. And now there's going to be a movie with a pretty amazing cast: Christopher Walken (Zeus), John Turturro (Hades), Sharon Stone (Aphrodite), Edie Falco (Artemis), Phylicia Rashad (Demeter), Nelsan Ellis (Dionysus), Gideon Glick (Eros), Henry Zebrowski (Hermes), Rosie Perez (Persephone).
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| Tagged (?): Animals (Not), Art (Not), Batman (Not), Blade Runner (Not), Captain America (Not), Cartoons (Not), Celebrities (Not), Clothing (Not), Comedy (Not), Comic books (Not), Cosplay (Not), Costumes (Not), Firefly (Not), Harry Potter (Not), Holiday (Not), Links (Not), Mario (Not), Monty Python (Not), Movies (Not), Mythology (Not), News (Not), Photography (Not), Recyclotron (Not), Shirts (Not), Star Wars (Not), Tolkien (Not), TV (Not), Video games (Not), Wolverine (Not) |
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| Friday, June 24, 2011 12:55 PM |
| Recyclotron |
| by Fëanor |
Fëanor pours the entire internet into the Recyclotron, and only the best links come out the other end for you to enjoy.
- Shirt irony!
- A nice piece depicting a tense moment from Aliens.
- Dan Hipp knows how to push my buttons.
- The latest Awesome Hospital amused me. "That'll get you thirty CCs of Ripitupazine, braff." Heh.
- io9 talks about some legendary cryptids that turned out to be real. Yay, platypus! Also, dream on, bigfoot believers! Btw, send your cryptid photos to io9 - they're offering a $2,000 bounty!
- Wizard World was in town recently - right near where I work, in fact - but I still didn't make it over there, because it's super expensive and I just would have wanted to buy everything I saw. Also, kinda busy here. Get off my case! Ahem. Anyway, I can simulate a visit to Wizard World by clicking here and looking at these pictures! And so can you!
- Have I posted about Yog-Blogsoth yet? I should have if I didn't. It's a dude trying to draw every creature in every H.P. Lovecraft story. Love the title, the concept, and the art! But beware - some of the images are NSFW. (Via)
- A camera that lets you adjust the focus after the picture has been taken?? Wow. The future is cool.
- Turns out the Red Skull started life as the cherry on an ice cream sundae.
- I'm not convinced Steven Spielberg's dinosaur show, Terra Nova, is going to be any good, but these posters are fun.
- Click through for links to many beautiful photos of a wedding at a museum.
- Emergency stakes.
- I would like to have this cookies n' cream cake, please. (Via)
- Enjoying this nostalgic Zelda comic and this NSFW Tyrion fan art from this Super Punch link roundup.
- Check out a bunch of cool posters for Immortals, the mythological epic from Tarsem Singh that I continue to be very excited about.
- If you haven't seen the new Captain America trailer yet, you really should. It looks like they got Cap's character just right. So many scenes and lines of dialog in here are so perfect. Really looking forward to this one!
- A six-foot LEGO model of Sauron's Dark Tower. Sweet!
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| Tagged (?): Advertising (Not), Aliens (Not), Art (Not), Captain America (Not), Clothing (Not), Comedy (Not), Comic books (Not), Cosplay (Not), Costumes (Not), Craft (Not), Dinosaurs (Not), Food (Not), Gadgets (Not), Game of Thrones (Not), LEGO (Not), Links (Not), Lovecraft (Not), Movies (Not), Mythology (Not), Photography (Not), Recyclotron (Not), Shirts (Not), Star Wars (Not), Steven Spielberg (Not), Technology (Not), Tolkien (Not), Toys (Not), TV (Not), Vampires (Not), Video (Not), Video games (Not), Web comics (Not), Zelda (Not) |
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| Wednesday, April 27, 2011 12:50 PM |
| Recyclotron |
| by Fëanor |
Fëanor pours the entire internet into the Recyclotron, and only the best links come out the other end for you to enjoy.
- Daphne from Scooby-Doo. Helloooo nurse!
- Annie Wu draws Dr. Mrs. The Monarch.
- A typically wonderful rendition of Emma Frost by Dan Hipp.
- Chris Samnee slaps down an amazing sketch of Captain America on Comic Twart. You know what that means: Cap is this week's selection! Awesome. (Also check out Samnee's wonderful, old school-style sketch of Dr. Doom and Mr. Fantastic fighting.)
- Arnold's returning to the Terminator franchise. On the one hand, I wouldn't mind having him back for old time's sake. But on the other hand, how do you explain a robot aging? And what else are you going to bring to the table besides Arnold? If there's not a good screenplay and a good director, it doesn't matter much who's in it. I mean, just look at the last Terminator movie. Or, on second thought, don't look at it. It's terrible!
- io9 takes a look at "The unlikely graffiti of Chernobyl."
- A dude who writes Syfy original movies developed a new way to make ice cream.
- The first official, HD trailer for Tarsem Singh's Greek mythology epic, Immortals. Oh my God, it looks so good. I love Singh's other films, and was really looking forward to seeing what he could do with this material and a big budget. Looks like he knocked it out of the park. These are the thrilling, wildly imaginative visuals I've come to expect from this filmmaker. I can't wait to see the complete, final product.
- This io9 article led me to these two interesting pieces: Michael Chabon's appreciation of a wonderful little book I haven't read in ages, The Phantom Toolbooth; and an analysis of why Julie Taymor's Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark failed.
- A couple of dudes were watching Game of Thrones, got into an argument over which of the characters was going to "win" (by which I guess they meant, take the throne and defeat all other challengers?), and it turned into a physical fight that ended with the police arresting one of them. Heh. That's silly, because clearly Jon and Dany are going to win, and I'll throw you through a window if you say anything different.
- The Beastie Boys are streaming their new album right here. You have to go and listen to it right now because it is fantastic.
- Hey, The Autumn Society is teaming up with Dreamworks Animation! Cool!
- I really enjoy the work of artist Katie Shanahan. Here's her version of Frank Miller's Robin.
- Fed up with toasters that don't give you even heating? Check out this round model!
- Water-ski alone with this skier-controlled tow boat. You know, if you're insane.
- A remote-controlled superhero.
- Oh, lord. A post-apocalyptic Zorro movie is on the way.
- Warner Bros. just added $9 million to the effects budget of Green Lantern, apparently as a last minute attempt to make sure the movie lives up to everyone's constantly rising expectations. I can't say this makes me feel particularly optimistic about this movie. You're trying to fix it by piling more effects on top? Yeah, that always works.
- In case you haven't seen it yet, here's the first official picture from the set of The Avengers, which started production the other day. Woo!
- Replacing the dialog in various scenes from Star Wars with depressing, existential French philosophy is surprisingly hilarious.
- Super Punch presents an illustration roundup and an image roundup.
- I posted these to Twitter the other day, but here they are again because they're awesome: cover art for a new limited series from Marvel called Red Skull.
- I love that we're bringing back the old William Castle theatrics and actually installing movie theater seats that shake you around for Super 8. Of course, they're probably doing this because they're desperate and feel they have to pull out all the stops anymore to get you away from your TV, your computer, and your smart phone and into the movie theater. But still.
- "Bacon-Fat Keyboard Lets Real Birds Tweet." It's about time!
- The art of Dushan Milic.
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| Tagged (?): Animals (Not), Art (Not), Avengers (Not), Books (Not), Captain America (Not), Cartoons (Not), Celebrities (Not), Comedy (Not), Comic books (Not), Crime (Not), Food (Not), Gadgets (Not), Game of Thrones (Not), Green Lantern (Not), Links (Not), Michael Chabon (Not), Monsters (Not), Movies (Not), Mythology (Not), News (Not), Philosophy (Not), Products (Not), Recyclotron (Not), Science (Not), Scooby-Doo (Not), Spider-Man (Not), Star Wars (Not), Technology (Not), Terminator (Not), TV (Not), Twitter (Not), Video (Not), X-Men (Not) |
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| Monday, January 31, 2011 10:41 AM |
| Recyclotron |
| by Fëanor |
Fëanor pours the entire internet into the Recyclotron, and only the best links come out the other end for you to enjoy.
- Video of a Godzilla made out of snow that also breathes fire.
- We have our Superman! This guy Henry Cavill from TV's The Tudors will play Supes in Zack Snyder's upcoming film. I don't think I've seen Cavill in anything, so I don't have much of an opinion about this casting, but he looks about right, at least. It is a little weird having a British guy play the quintessential American superhero, but hey, if he's any good at acting, I'm thinking he can probably act not-British.
- Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci, who had writing duties on Star Trek and Fringe, are shopping around a screenplay for a film adaptation of Ender's Game. Intriguing!
- A gigantic recreation of a VHS copy of 2001: A Space Odyssey as a monolith.
- The latest additions to Reelizer include some great Kurosawa posters.
- Mr. Potato Head versions of characters from Star Trek: The Original Series are on the way. Beware! Or rejoice, as you choose.
- Marvel vs. Capcom 3 is cruel enough to feature Galactus, the devourer of worlds himself, as a boss. Here's video to prove it!
- An amusing comic imagines what would have happened if the Minotaur had been crafty. (Via)
- An accurate but rather tautological advertising sticker.
- Heh.
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| Tagged (?): Advertising (Not), Art (Not), Celebrities (Not), Comedy (Not), Comic books (Not), Craft (Not), Godzilla (Not), Kaiju (Not), Kurosawa (Not), Links (Not), Monsters (Not), Movies (Not), Mythology (Not), News (Not), Photography (Not), Recyclotron (Not), Star Trek (Not), Superman (Not), Toys (Not), Video (Not), Video games (Not), Web comics (Not) |
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Jim Genzano's books on Goodreads
